IT’D be fair to say Ana Paula Campos de Moura knows more about Portland than most Australians, despite having lived her entire life in Brazil.

She’s also probably got more out of her Rotary Youth Exchange trip here than most of the many thousands of people from around the world who have taken part in the hugely successful program in its more than 75 years of existence.

Ms Moura was recently in Portland for the eighth time – it all began with her student exchange at the-then Portland High School in 1982 – catching up with the many friends and families she made during that initial trip.

There have been a few stories in the Observer about her visits over the years, largely focusing on what she was doing at the time, but how did she come to be here in the first place?

It turns out there was a fair bit of luck involved.

“I wanted to go on a Rotary exchange but there was no more available in any of the places,” she said.

An uncle took her to meet with the chairman of one of the five Rotary clubs in the “town” of 500,000 she came from (the state capital Sao Paulo has a population of about 30 million these days).

The club chairman pointed out Australia owed Brazil a favour – the previous year the Brazilians had agreed to take an extra student from here when her initial country cancelled on her – and a few months before she arrived here in early 1982, the trip was confirmed.

“It was spur of the moment and I wanted to go,” Ms Moura said.

The-then 16-year-old quickly fitted in Year 12 at Portland High School, where the way students were educated was a far cry from her homeland.

And she fitted in even better with the Payne, Hampshire, Lewis, Hume and Errey families who hosted her on that first visit – so much so she has caught up with them on every trip since in the subsequent 41 years.

“This is my eighth visit here and that’s because of the people,” Ms Moura said.

“Always my heart belongs to these people.”

So much so that Ms Moura still addresses them in much the same way – then school council and Rotary Club of Portland president Graeme Hume is still ‘Dad’ (as are the other fathers of the households she stayed in, the mothers are still ‘Mum’ and the kids are ‘brothers’ and ‘sisters’.

And then there is Bill Golding, the Portland High School principal at the time and a community icon – he’s still ‘Mr Golding’, a form of respectfully addressing elders which was common up to her generation but which has largely disappeared now.

“Every time I come here I catch up with Mr Golding,” Ms Moura said.

“And I love (Mr Hume) as much as my own Dad.”

Her initial trip influenced her life beyond imagining.

The late Don Errey even arranged for a visit to see former Prime Minister Malcolm Fraser – “I went everywhere, the only place I didn’t go was Darwin,” Ms Moura said.

“In Brazil I had to choose which branch I wanted to do in high school – engineering, biological or (humanities) and I chose biology because I wanted to be a doctor,” she said.

“Then I came here and Portland High School was such an advanced system – it was the first time I ever saw computers, there were Apple 3 computers in the maths class.

“I also got a very upset stomach in biology class and I realised medicine is not for admiration but vocation.”

A 15-day trip to Ayers Rock (Uluru) with students from 31 other countries proved another turning point.

“I started to have another kind of view – how could 31 nationalities speak the same language – that’s what life is all about,” Ms Moura said.

On her return home, despite the objections of her parents, she switched to languages and eventually ran a successful business teaching English to corporate clients, including plenty of tycoons and chief executives – she still does some private teaching to this day, including 160 high school students each year for the past 18 years.

But despite all those highflyers, Ms Moura sorts the wheat from the chaff.

“The reason why I always catch up with Mr Golding is I’ve dealt with many tycoons in my life but I think there’s a difference between being a leader and being a director,” she said.

“Mr Golding is a leader.”

 For their part Mr Hume and Mr Golding are delighted Ms Moura visits regularly – she pointed out she has also hosted 18 visits by Australians over the years.

“We had one from Canada that made a couple of trips but nothing like this,” Mr Hume said.

“I think it’s phenomenal,” Mr Golding said.

Ms Moura always had an inkling to emigrate to Australia, but by the time she applied in 2012, she was 46 years old and deemed too old by this country’s immigration officials.

“My third father Ian Lewis (not the former Observer sports editor) even rang my parents and said he’d adopt me at one time,” Ms Moura said.

“They told him for all my faults I was still their daughter… I had to wait until my Dad passed away and was told I was too old then.”

Ms Moura is well qualified to observe changes in Portland since her first visit.

“Visually speaking it’s very different,” she said.

“The Great South West Walk, I see different buildings every time and I see a lot more tourist-type things to do – this time I noticed the (new) marina.”

Despite the long path to get here – at one stage it was a 14-hour flight followed by a 16-hour one, Ms Moura is likely to make her next visit in two years’ time.

Her husband has also wanted to come for some time, but she set a condition that he had to be able to speak English fluently first – Ms Moura doesn’t teach him, but she said he was making some progress.

“He’s having classes every day,” she said.